San Mateo County’s new Maple Street jail is not your typical jail. It features a computer lab, radiant floor heating, and even images of California nature on the walls, which is probably why Supervisor Adrienne Tissier calls it an example of “compassionate corrections.”

But one thing the brand new jail lacks is a visiting room. When family members travel to the jail to visit their incarcerated loved ones, they will “visit” via computer screen.

Unfortunately, San Mateo County is not the only county that has eliminated in-person visits. A report produced last year by the nonprofit Prison Policy Initiative found that 74 percent of jails nationwide that adopt video visitation use the technology to replace in-person visits. At least six counties in California have eliminated in-person visitation in one of their jails, even though face-to-face visitation is a correctional best practice.

The American Bar Association’s criminal justice standards clearly state, “Correctional officials should develop and promote other forms of communication between prisoners and their families, including video visitation, provided that such options are not a replacement for opportunities for in-person contact.”

Architects agree. The American Institute of Architects’ Academy of Architecture for Justice sustainable jail design guidelines, which I helped write, recommend that jails “provide robust option for video visitation without supplanting in-person visiting.”

Sheriffs like video visiting because it reduces movement within jails, saving staff time. But this is fools’ savings: Studies have shown that family visits are one of the best predictors of a successful reentry from jail to society, and even a single in-person visit can reduce recidivism by 13 percent. No research has studied video visitation’s impact on recidivism, but the lack of emotional connection and privacy are obvious.

Attorneys will always need to meet confidentially and in-person with their clients, and legal visits by video have already been surreptitiously recorded by jail authorities without the knowledge or consent of lawyers and their clients.

Last year, the Texas Legislature decided that Texas jails with video services must also offer in-person visits. California State Sen. Holly Mitchell of Los Angeles has introduced a worthy bill, Strengthening Family Connections: In-Person Visitation, that would protect in-person visits in California jails and juvenile facilities.

The lack of a visiting room isn’t the only problem with San Mateo’s new jail, however. From the get-go, the county could have safely reduced its jail population to the size where it would not have needed a new building at all, using bail reform and other common sense criminal justice measures.

But as an architect, I know how alluring the promise of a new building can be. It seems like a stronger statement of justice reform rather than simply letting people stay in their homes while awaiting trial.

Other California counties should take the lesson: Do everything you can to avoid the need to build a new jail, lest your best intentions end up depriving people of something as basic, and as essential, as a hug from your wife, husband, parent or child.

Raphael Sperry is a San Francisco architect and president of Architects/Designers/Planners for Social Responsibility. He wrote this for the Mercury News.

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